The Null Chapel hated certainty.
It swallowed hymns the way it swallowed footsteps—softly, stubbornly, like the stone itself refused to remember who it had belonged to. Black water circled the cracked altar, still as ink left to rot. Every sound that entered came out thinner.
Astra stood at the threshold with the Guild witness seal burning cold against her throat, Kael at her side like a drawn blade held under discipline, Orin and Juno behind them, Lyra drifting near the wall as if she'd paid for this silence.
Then the chapel flinched.
Warmth seeped in first—Seraphine's hymn sliding over the air like perfume meant to make everyone forget they were bleeding. The flame in Orin's lamp bent toward it, eager. Astra's collar pulsed, hungry for sanctity.
A second pressure followed—cleaner, sharper. Guild geometry. Not boots. Not bodies. A grid laid across space from a distance, patient and precise.
The chapel didn't welcome either.
It made both feel wrong.
Astra's interface flickered, cold and merciless.
STATUS: Pain high. Fatigue rising.TRACE: 78.4%PERMISSIONS: Write(Self) AVAILABLE (RISK EXTREME)PATCHES: Delay Loop / Ghost Command / Pain Partition (INSTALLED)GUILD WITNESS SEAL: ACTIVENOTE: Arbitration begins when claimants hold stable signal.
Stable signal.
In the Null Chapel, stable signal was a joke.
Still—signal gathered at the edges like teeth closing around meat.
Seraphine's voice arrived through the seal's private channel, too close, too intimate.
"I'm here," she whispered. "Say your confirmation, Astra. No witnesses."
Astra's blood went cold.
Because Seraphine had used Kael's phrase.
Astra looked at Kael.
His eyes were hard, jaw clenched. "I didn't tell her."
Lyra's smile sharpened in the dim. "Then who did."
Dorian's silk laughter curled through Astra's collar like a hand turning a lock.
"You're all such obedient little conspirators," he murmured. "Did you think your secrets were yours?"
Astra swallowed bile and forced her posture upright. Her throat burned around the seal, but she didn't touch it. Touching meant pain. Touching meant trace. Touching meant the system leaning in to taste her weakness.
Kael shifted closer, not touching her collar, just placing his body where her panic would have run. His voice was low at her ear, rough and controlled.
"Don't answer her," he said.
Astra's lips barely moved. "If I don't, the seal can broadcast. It's hungry."
Kael's hand closed around her wrist—firm enough to ground, loose enough not to own. "Then let it be hungry. Not fed."
Lyra made a soft sound of amusement from the wall. "He's protective. How sweet."
Kael didn't even look at her. He kept his gaze on Astra like she was the only thing worth protecting.
That focus warmed Astra in a way that was dangerous.
She used it anyway.
Astra turned her head just enough to see the chapel's center. The cracked altar stone sat like a broken tooth. The black water around it reflected nothing cleanly.
"Orin," Astra said softly. "How deep is the null channel."
Orin's voice came tight. "Deep enough to smear sanctity. Not deep enough to erase it."
Juno's fingers twitched around her disks. "Deep enough to dirty a grid if I time it."
Astra nodded once.
She didn't need to erase Seraphine or the Guild.
She needed them to misread each other long enough for her to move.
The witness seal pulsed again, impatient.
PRIVATE VERBAL CONFIRMATION REQUESTED — LUMEN AUTHORITYCROSS-VALIDATION: PENDING (BLOCKED BY PRIVACY GATE)
Astra's new clause held like a thin blade against a shield: cross-validation required Astra's private verbal confirmation.
Good.
But Seraphine had just tried to use Kael's phrase to force that confirmation.
Meaning the phrase was compromised.
Meaning Dorian could make any "code" rot in his mouth and spit it back as proof.
Astra leaned toward Kael, close enough that her breath warmed the corner of his mouth. She didn't touch his collar. She didn't touch his crest. She made it a choice, not a grab.
"Consent?" Astra whispered.
Kael's eyes darkened. "For what."
Astra's voice stayed low and sharp. "New phrase. Right now."
Kael's jaw flexed. He understood instantly. He nodded once. "Yes."
Heat flared low in Astra's belly. Not soft. Not safe. But it steadied her spine.
Astra murmured, "If I say it, you confirm. If you say it, I confirm."
Kael's voice was rough. "And Lyra hears nothing."
Lyra's smile sharpened from the wall. "I can hear everything."
Kael finally looked at her—cold, lethal. "Not this."
Astra kept her gaze on Kael. "Phrase?"
Kael stared at her for a beat, then chose words that sounded like a knife sliding into its sheath.
"Black water."
Astra felt the phrase settle inside her chest like a lock.
Black water. The chapel's moat. The thing they could both see. The thing Dorian couldn't fake as easily because it required context—timing, breath, presence.
Astra nodded once. "Black water."
Kael's grip on her wrist eased—a silent agreement, not a leash.
Then Astra lifted her chin and answered Seraphine's private channel with calm, controlled clarity.
"Your previous request is denied," Astra said softly. "You used compromised language."
A pause.
Seraphine's voice returned, warm as a candle held too close to skin. "Compromised. By whom."
Astra's mouth curved without humor. "If you don't know, you're not safe enough to arbitrate."
Lyra's quiet laugh slipped through the dim. "Ouch."
Seraphine didn't sound hurt.
She sounded pleased.
"You're learning to bite," Seraphine murmured. "Good. Come forward, Astra. Let us speak properly."
Astra didn't step.
She didn't kneel.
She didn't offer her throat.
She spoke one word, clear and steady, aimed at Kael's nerves and at her own decision.
"Black water."
Kael answered instantly, rough and controlled. "Black water."
Confirmation. Real. Present.
Then Astra spoke into the private channel again.
"I will give private verbal confirmation," Astra said, "only after claimants present themselves physically inside the chapel—no remote grid overlays."
Silence.
Seraphine's breath sounded faintly amused. "You demand the Guild step into dirt."
"I demand they stop pretending they're not already in it," Astra said.
The witness seal hummed, displeased, as if she'd insulted its favorite kind of authority.
Then clean pressure in the chapel shifted.
A thin line of pale geometry flickered above the cracked altar stone—like someone had placed a ruler on the air.
A voice arrived, polite as a knife.
"Subject Astra Vey," Meros Hal said, calm and crisp. "You are not entitled to restrict Guild method."
Astra's eyes narrowed. "Then you're not entitled to my confirmation."
Meros's voice remained polite. "Your hostile status removes your entitlement to negotiate."
Astra smiled faintly. "And yet you keep talking to me."
A soft pause.
Even through the seal's hum, Astra could hear Meros's irritation tightening.
"We are here," Meros said. "By proxy node. We do not need to step into your null pit."
Astra's collar pulsed. The seal pulsed. The systems loved proxies. Loved clean distance. Loved law without sweat.
Astra hated it.
She looked at Juno.
Juno met her eyes and gave a tiny nod.
Astra lifted her chin and said, softly, into the chapel air, "Begin."
Juno flicked two disks into the black water.
They didn't splash like normal metal. The water swallowed sound. The disks vanished beneath the surface and hummed low, ugly, wrong. The hum traveled through the moat like a vein of poison.
The pale geometry above the altar stuttered.
Meros's clean pressure wavered.
Seraphine's warmth hesitated too—hymn flickering like candlelight in wind.
The chapel didn't erase either authority.
It made both uncertain.
Astra's interface flickered.
NULL INTERFERENCE: HIGHGUILD PROXY GRID: DESTABILIZED (3.2s)LUMEN SIGNAL: SMEARED (2.7s)WINDOW: 03…02…